1987 IRE Award winners
Jeff Leen, Guy Gugliotta and James Savage
Miami Herald
Series details the Medellin drug cartel in Colombia, its origins and its grip on the American drug market.
Charlie Shepard
The Charlotte Observer
Series investigates the corrupt world of televangelist Jim Bakker and his organization, PTL, led to the collapse of PTL.
Lisa Cadillo Rose, Al Salvato and Robert White
Cincinnati Post
Series investigates Ohio’s overburdened, underfinanced child protection system.
Newspapers under 75,000
Jim Balderston and Tim Redmond
The San Francisco Bay Guardian
Series uncovers asbestos hazards in the San Francisco Unified School District
Martin Connolly
Boulder Daily Camera
Series reveals that the top secret Rocky Flats nuclear weapons plant in Colorado contained a gift-making operation (jewelry, etc.) that cost taxpayers at least $1 million.
Chris Szechenyi and Rena Wish Cohen
Daily Herald (Arlington Heights, IL)
Series exposes a systematic problem in the way worker safety is monitored on federally funded construction sites.
Magazine
Jill Morrison and Andy Zipser
Mother Jones
Story reveals that a process of moving Navajos resulted in prime real estate being handed to developers while the Native Americans were given uranium tainted land.
Jean Cobb
Common Cause
Story examines how the Democratic and Republican parties exploit a loophole to allow PACs and others to contribute millions to building funds that are not subject to disclosure or limit laws.
Television, larger markets
Michele Gillen and Robert Groves
WPLG-TV (Miami)
Series uncovers abuse and neglect of children by Florida agencies responsible for them and a statewide coverup of problems.
Rick Nelson, Lea Thompson, Sheila Duffy and John Spillane
WRC-TV (Washington, DC)
Story details deaths, unnecessary surgeries and mis-diagnosis of patients because of labratory errors.
Television, smaller markets
John McPherson and Jill Kalstrom
WESH-TV
Series investigates adoption agencies; details kidnappings from South America, suspicious financial transactions, medical problems.
Pat Minarcin and Ed Wilson
WCPO-TV (Cincinnati)
Series examines suspicious deaths at a Cincinnati Hospital and an orderly who later confessed to 59 murders at the hospital and elsewhere.